There was the science and technology aspect that I was fascinated with, yes. But, I was also troubled by the deprivation and injustice that was all around. The rebellious teenager ended up not caring about science and technology, and became increasingly worried about the misplaced priorities of a society that was not addressing the fundamental and basic needs of people.
I continue to worry about the misplaced priorities. More than five years ago, I blogged about the colossal waste that results. In my post, and in most of my complaints about India's awful resource allocation decisions, my question has always been along the lines of why the fundamental issues--like toilets--don't get the priority they deserve.
Or, consider water. Chennai, a "city of nearly 10 million — India's sixth largest — has almost run out of water."
Without water we are doomed.
Piped water has run dry in Chennai, the capital of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, and 21 other Indian cities are also facing the specter of “Day Zero,” when municipal water sources are unable to meet demand.
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Middle- and upper-middle-class people in Chennai are paying twice as much as before the crisis for water from tankers, and they can afford to drill new wells twice as deep as would have been needed 15 years ago. “We are on war footing,” one of my cousins, who lives there, remarked. As with most environmental crises, the poor are affected disproportionately.
As always, it is the poor who suffer the most.
Yet, it is the same old democratic ways of resource allocation--the government of India is getting ready to launch yet another spacecraft to the moon. Like the previous one, this mission will also search for, among other things, water. What a tragic irony!
The US, too, is no exception to this rule. In the context of the 50th anniversary of the first ever human footprints on the lunar surface, think about the US in the 1960s when JFK launched this mission. Life in the US was brutal for anyone who was not white. By the time NASA was getting ready for the launching of the Apollo 11 rockets, MLK had been assassinated. There was injustice all around. Yet, the government was not investing resources in order to address the injustice. We were a lot more enthusiastic about spending gazillions to go to the moon.
Which is why there was a protest. A symbolic one. But, a protest nonetheless:
They must have been a sight: around 150 Americans, mostly black mothers and their children, walking with two mule-drawn wagons through light mist and rolling thunder. Led by Ralph Abernathy, the caravan arrived at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in advance of the Apollo 11 launch. Unlike many thousands more, however, they hadn’t come in celebration and awe. They came to protest.
The reasons were real. The protesters were no snowflakes!
The contrast was dramatic: mules and rockets, rambling wagons and a vast sky to be conquered. The S.C.L.C. argued that one-fifth of the American population lived in poverty, without adequate food, shelter and health care, and therefore it was indecent for the nation to spend billions on the dream of spaceflight. Abernathy said, “I am here to demonstrate with poor people in a symbolic way against the tragic and inexcusable gulf that exists between America’s technological abilities and our social injustices.”
"They exposed the essential tension at the root of the nation."
America’s ambition persistently stopped short of the equality creed, and yet it seemed to always demand a self-effacing patriotism from even the most vulnerable, including the poor folks who marched with Abernathy on Cape Kennedy.
Back in India, the injustices seems insurmountable. A couple of months ago, during my winter visit with the family, I met a vocal activist. I asked him how he keeps going. "I am a rabid optimist," he replied.
In writing about the water crisis in Chennai, he writes:
Our dominant economic model, with its blind faith in technology, is doomed.
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Chennai's struggles with water - be it flooding or scarcity - cannot be addressed unless the city re-examines its values, and how it treats its land and water.
Injustices cannot be addressed without examining the values behind our collective decision-making.
Yes, celebrate the anniversary of a phenomenal human achievement of going to the moon and returning. But, let's also pay attention to the injustices all around us. As MLK noted, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
